October 28, 2011

We the People Takes the Next Step: Responding to White House Petitions

One of the top petitions submitted to the White House, with over 31,000 signatures as of October 24, 2011, concerned student loan debt. It's not surprising that a Senior Advisor to President Obama, David Plouffe, has said that President Obama’s recent relaxation of student debt burden reflects a policy that will help create jobs in the current economy and that “we can't wait for Congress to act.”

In his message he states:

“These policies aren't a substitute for the American Jobs Act, but they will make a difference. And we don't intend to stop there.

The best ideas for growing this economy won't come from Washington – they'll come from Americans like you.”

A top education advisor to President Obama, Roberto Rodriguez, had this to say about petitions submitted to the White House so far.

“Thank you for taking the time to participate in the "We the People" petition process. We launched this online tool as a way of hearing directly from you, and are pleased that you have responded by presenting this idea.

We agree that reducing the burden of student loans is an effective way to stimulate the economy and save taxpayer dollars. That's why we're excited to announce a new policy that speaks to the concerns expressed in this petition.

In the little more than a month since the White House launched We the People, 755,000 people used the platform to create or sign more than 12,400 petitions that have gathered over 1.2 million total signatures.”

The Tech Team responsible for helping to build and monitor the petition site at We the People, has reportedly benefited from feedback about the system itself. Over the past few weeks input to the website has been used to improve We the People's user experience.

Users can give additional feedback via Twitter using the hashtag #WHWeb and users can respond and follow the petition action on twitter by using @WeThePeople .